The Finance Council meetings were held on 22nd April. Though they were held as separate meetings, in this update I have covered all the significant points in this single report. The first part of the meetings covered a number of items which I would call routine matters.
Finance matters
The following annual accounts were accepted by the meeting:
For the year ended 31st August 2021 –
ECF Annual accounts, BCF Annual accounts, Chess Centre Limited Annual accounts
For the year ended 31st August 2022 –
ECF Annual accounts, BCF Annual accounts, Chess Centre Limited Annual accounts
Well done to the Finance Director for bringing all the accounts up to date.
Budget
Members approved the budget as presented by the Finance Director which confirmed that the current membership fees would be maintained for 2023/24.
Finance Committee Report
The Finance Committee’s report was accepted. Given the size of the International budget, the report included a request for a breakdown of the expenditure by headlines of expenditure and a breakdown of the expenditure between Men’s and Women’s teams in the key international events.
Governance
Members approved changes to the governance rules relating to the appointment of members of the Standing Committees. In future the Standing Committees will appoint new members until the next Annual General Meeting where appointments will be confirmed. This changes the previous arrangement where the Board appointed new members in the interim period.
Members also agreed to minor changes to the governance arrangements mainly correcting the use of “chair” instead of “chairman.
Members agreed changes to the Finance Byelaws updating the position regarding the coverage of the Finance Committee. Additionally, the meeting agreed that the Board should report to Council how sponsorship monies had been spent.
The John Robinson Youth Chess Trust and The Chess Trust
The chairman of the JRYCT presented an update on the activities of the trust and how they proposed to continue to support chess in the future. A change was agreed to allow the Trustees greatly discretion in how funds were expended in the future.
I provided an update on the activities of The Chess Trust highlighting the various activities supported: the Accelerator Programme, “Norm“ tournaments, Women’s and Senior events, Ukrainian players who had been forced to come to the UK, the British Chess Championships and the ECF Awards Committee activities.
For future meetings I will encourage representatives of the Trusts to update Council on their activities to keep everyone informed.
Future Membership Options
For the second part of the meetings which caused the most discussion, the Chief Executive, Mike Truran, had submitted a very useful paper on possible options for changing the current membership arrangements. As with any major change you will not be surprised to learn that there was the full spectrum of views on how the ECF should proceed from “it’s not broke, so do not change it” to “if the ECF wants to make progress, we must have a single membership rate for everyone”. There was much heated debate. Fortunately, a return to the former Game fee or a similar Per Event fee was clearly rejected.
The final outcome of the votes in order of preference was:
- No change
- Single membership rate
- Merger of the Silver and Gold categories
The Board is going to consider the results of Council’s views and, if considered appropriate, bring forward a paper to the AGM in October with firm proposals.
This is a brief summary of the meetings. More comprehensive details can be found on the ECF website under Council meetings – agendas and the draft minutes.
David Eustace, Chair, ECF and BCF Council
May 2023